9 letters · 15 points in Scrabble
noun a class of woman not considered respectable because of indiscreet or promiscuous behavior
originBorrowed from French demi-monde (literally “half-world”), from demi (“half”) + monde (“world; people”); possibly coined by French author and playwright Alexandre Dumas fils as the title of a comedic play, Le Demi Monde (1855): see the quotation from 1864.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0